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New Geoscape UI preview!


Chris

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I'm a big fan of the older art too, horrid. I appreciated it even more when I saw it without all of the menus in the way. Had the menus and general interface managed to show them at their best, perhaps having them overhauled would have been less of an issue.

I seem to recall a post where Chris was toying with changing the gun racks on those images as the game went on, so they were originally more than place holders.

I do like the more coherent look around the menus and the geoscape. Again, I can see why some like the darker, more ominous old one.

At some point, it would be nice to take out the newer art and replace it with the old, while keeping the menus etc. With the art itself updating, it would be interesting to see if that's possible. This isn't a criticism of the new art. I just get more of a cold war feel form the older versions.

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After looking back at the new geoscape art in the OP, I really like it, but there is one thing that still bugs me a lot, it's the rounded top bar over the map.

It feels just rounded for the sake of roundness, look at the bottom of the screen you've got boxes on either side in the layout, it's completely at odds with the rounded thing at the top.

My suggestion would be to make the top boxy, it would look better fitting in the 80's too imo, it would be less unnecessary eyer candy to boot.

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The next experimental build should have the new map in it, even if the actual Geoscape screen itself isn't yet properly updated.

It's amazing how much better the game looks just with blue oceans instead of black, though.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I don't find the "Build New Base" or "Launch Interceptors" buttons all that intuitive, took me a while to find them despite them being top-centre. Perhaps visually buttonizing them somehow would help. For the "Build New Base" button, can there please be some kind of tooltip that indicates what is required to build a new base? If I try and build one it tells me I don't have enough money, but there's no indication (that I saw) that tells me how much it costs.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Great improvement. One of the first things I noticed when playing was the change in interface between base navigation and geoscape, which just made it confusing. The new layout is far more logical. Also, I love the colors of the map and little enhancements like the bottom corners.

I did like the race relations, funding level, etc. in the old interface though... is that the same? I can't tell as the comparison screen shot has a base highlighted instead of a region.

Lastly, is the text in the top left just used as a demonstration of font? I can't tell why that would say "Personnel / Training" while viewing the Geoscape...

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  • 1 month later...

As I just posted in another thread, I much prefer the original geoscape, for it's ominous and moody feel, which, to me, matches the music and the feeling of threat that I should feel from the invasion. Can we possibly have an option to choose in the game settings which geoscape map we use? I've loved the original since I fist saw it.

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/5035/xenonauts20120106203251.jpg

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  • 1 month later...

Well I hope that they will consider allowing for the choice between bright and cheery and dark and ominous. The previous geoscape matched the mood of the music and theme identically, and I thought it was a gorgeous piece of art on its own - to the point that my favourite part of launching the game may have been to overlooking that geoscape and taking in the dire and end-times feel of the whole thing. I'm sure I'll get used to the new, which also looks nice, but I think that the old will always just click. Also, that kind of customization is attractive on its own.

Edited by Delicieuxz
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It takes 5 minutes or so to open up all of the image files in xenonauts/assets/earth in photoshop.

Reduce the blue channel hue and lightness down as low as possible on each image.

You should now have a dark grey/blue ocean without changing the land colours at all.

You can always play with other settings if you want to reduce the saturation of the land masses as well.

I reckon if you adjust the master saturation down to -10 to -15 (after desaturating the oceans) you get a look approximate to the old geoscape.

Say 10 minutes total and you will have a geoscape map that fits your own tastes.

I assume there are other image editing packages available with a similar feature.

If you do this you might want to save the images though, they will likely be overwritten next time there is an update.

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